Ketron SD7 User Manual

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KETRON SD7 MANUAL, TUTORIAL, HINTS & TIPS

(V 1.0)

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Congratulations on your purchase of the KETRON SD7 Arranger & Player Electronic keyboard. This multi­media musical instrument is the first in this class of musical instruments to combine modern features
such as a very intuitive touch screen, multi player capabilities including the new Audio Multi Tracking
feature, Style Modeling and live Sounds into a very affordable package - designed by musicians for
musicians. Right out of the box, the SD7 is ready for any musician, performer, studio engineer or
entertainer to use on stage, at a place of worship, or in the studio – with incredible Audio Drums,
authentic live bass and backing tracks suitable for almost any song, thanks to the vast library of
professional sounds and rhythms. For simplicity, this tutorial will focus on the main areas of the SD7
such as SOUNDS & VOICES, ARRANGER/STYLES/BEATS, and Multi Media PLAYER. Most of the functions
of this machine revolve around these and in some cases combine these features to offer you capabilities
yet to be seen or heard of on any other keyboard in the market today.

Depending on your purpose of purchasing the KETRON SD7, you can set it up for various PLAY MODES
based on your needs (Pianist, Organist, Accordionist, Guitarist …etc) simply by pressing the MENU

button on the right side of the panel - . Touch PLAY MODE to display the following screen
and select the play mode you’re interested in.

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This is discussed in more depth below
under the MENU section.

GETTING AROUND THE SD7 – NAVIGATION

Getting around the SD7 is very easy and can be done in a number of ways using these key buttons:-

1. TOUCH SCREEN:- The bright touch screen allows you to touch icons directly on

the screen. To access contents that are within folders, simply double touch (as you would double
click on a mouse).

2. DATA/VALUE DIAL/WHEEL:- This wheel allows you to change the values of selected

items. So, if you touch a numeric icon on the screen (for an example), you can turn this wheel to
change its value quickly.

3. EXIT button:- This button is very useful to get out of sub menus or folders and get

back to the main operating screen of the SD7 during operation

4. ENTER button:- This button is used to enter and display the content of folders in the

screen or to confirm operations on the screen such as pop up messages.

5. SAVE button:- Depending on which screen is being displayed, this button is used to

SAVE current settings, custom start up, User styles, Registrations etc. This will be explained in
details within the manual below

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1. PLAYING IN FULL KEYBOARD MODE (PIANIST) & SPLIT
(ARRANGER) MODE

When you turn on the SD7, it turns on in the SPLIT/ARRANGER MODE, the key bed has a SPLIT POINT
where to the left of the split are the keys used to control the arranger or play separate LEFT voice(s), and
the keys to the right side are used to play lead voice(s). The DEFAULT VOICE for the RIGHT side is the
GRAND PIANO, while the default voice for the LEFT side is the ELECTRIC PIANO.

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To assign a new split point on the keyboard, press and hold down the SPLIT button on the panel (right

side)

The current split point will be displayed on the screen (right side) as shown below:-

You can then assign a new SPLIT point while holding down the SPLIT button by pressing the key on the
keybed where you want the split point to be. So if you want the split point to be at F#2, as you hold
down the SPLIT button, press the F#2 key and this will become the new split point (and it will be
displayed on the screen – right section where the split value is currently being displayed). Release the
SPLIT button once set as needed. If you don’t want a SPLIT point (while holding down the SPLIT button),
you can also press the first key to the left of the keyboard (C) and the entire keyboard will now be the
lead/right voice.

The proper way however to ignore the split point would be to press the PIANIST button (left side of
panel).

This button automatically removes the SPLIT point and the entire keyboard becomes one … (PIANIST
MODE) - with one voice/voices, governed by the RIGHT/Lead voice selection. In this mode (PIANIST),
you can then select a voice or voices and play through the entire keyboard – just as you would do on a
regular keyboard. In the PIANIST mode, a musician can also play the arranger as a regular piano and still

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have the automatic accompaniment follow along as they play (the keyboard follows you and not the
other way around). This is discussed in more detail below in section 4.J - PIANIST (page 59)

2. SOUNDS & VOICES

Unlike any other keyboard you’ve come across, you will quickly realize that the SD7 produces some of
the best natural sounds for a keyboard in this class. The Sax, trumpets, Piano and other natural
instruments come to life and ‘breath’ in your hands as you play them on the SD7, proving once again,
that KETRON has lived up to its “Best Natural Sounds” motto.

2.A - PLAYING & USING SOUNDS (LEAD VOICES)

The SD7 comes loaded with over 500 voices. There are over 350 preset voices (which are either
individual sounds or layered voices as prepared by KETRON). Press the VOICE button on the SD7’s panel

(right side) or touch the current voice in the top right box on the screen to display the voice groups (to
the right of the screen) and the voices in the current voice group (to the left of the screen).

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The following screen will be displayed….

As you can see, the left side of the screen shows the various voice groups or categories where all the
voices in the keyboard reside in. The current voice group selected is highlighted in yellow (in the above

case, PIANO), while the various voices in this group are shown on the left side of the screen (in this case
the various pianos found in the PIANO group). To use a voice, simply touch it. If you cannot find a voice

you want, press the voice group button once more (or press the ENTER/PAGE button below the wheel)
to access the next page of voices in this same group. Once you find the voice you need, simply touch it
on the left side of the screen and this becomes your new lead/right voice.

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2.B - ACCESSING AND USING MORE VOICES (RAM SOUNDS)

If you need even more voices, there are over 40 professional high quality Tone wheel Organ and
Orchestral voices on the built in Solid State Drive which you can instantly load into memory and use at
the touch of a button. To access these RAM voices, press the RAM button on the panel (right side).

The screen displayed is similar to this which shows you the first page of 8 of these superior voices.

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By turning the data wheel or pressing the ENTER/PAGE button, you can access the other
pages of voices. [THE AJAMSONIC VERSION HAS 30 EXTRA VOICES IN THIS CATEGORY]. Touch the voice
on the screen you want to load and use. When the hour glass disappears, the voice has been loaded and
is ready for use.

If you select another voice, the previous voice loaded remains in memory (name changes to red) and
you can select this voice again. This time there is no delay because the voice is still in memory and so it
can be played instantly. Any voice you touch (which is in red) can be used instantly. If you touch another
voice to us, the first one gets deleted from memory and the last 2 voices are always retained – until you
turn off the SD7.

2.C - PLAYING 2 LEAD SOUNDS/VOICES AT ONCE (2nd VOICE)

You can instantly layer an additional voice either with a Factory voice, RAM voice or USER VOICE (your
edited/created voice) - which we call 2nd VOICE. From the factory, each lead voice already has an
additional voice assigned to it which you can turn on/off by simply pressing the 2nd voice button on the
panel (or touching the 2nd VOICE on the screen and it turns yellow) and raising the corresponding 2nd
Voice volume slider below it. Together with the RIGHT volume slider (for the lead/main voice) you can
adjust how you want both voices to sound relative to one another.

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2.D - HOW TO CHANGE THE 2nd VOICE OF ANY LEAD VOICE

Assuming you’re not satisfied with the factory’s 2nd voices that have been assigned to the lead voice,
how do you now change the 2nd voice of any lead voice and make it your own? To do this, you would
have to go into the VOICE EDITOR.

 From the voice selection screen, touch and hold the lead/main voice whose 2nd voice you want

to edit for 2 seconds. A screen similar to this one below will be displayed that shows all the
elements (individual voices) that make up this voice (the voices used to create this lead voice you
have selected will be turned ON as shown on the left On/OFF column).

 To select a new 2nd voice for this lead voice, touch the current voice in the 2nd Voice box. A

screen similar to this one below will be displayed. This screen shows the current 2nd voice that is
being used for this lead voice (left) and the voice group from which this voice was selected
(right).

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 You can now select your new 2nd voice for this lead voice, simply select the voice group (to the

right) where you think your 2nd voice resides, then select that 2nd voice (to the left of the screen).

If you do not see the voice you are looking for – turn the data wheel or press the ENTER/PAGE
button to display the next page of voices that exist in the current category/voice group. There
are many pages of voices per voice group which you can access this way.

 When done, press the SAVE button (below the data wheel) to save your new USER VOICE and

it’s corresponding 2nd voice (remember, you cannot over write the factory voices so whenever a

modification is made to a factory voice and you want to save it, it is saved as a USER VOICE. This
therefore means that if you go back and select this factory voice, the original 2nd voice that was
assigned to it by KETRON will still be there, and not yours).

o SAVE:- This saves your new user voice in the USER VOICE location but with the same

factory name.

o SAVE AS:- Opens a keyboard where you can name your new voice and save it by

touching the ENTER button on the screen. Your new voice will now be saved (together
with your matching 2nd voice) as a USER VOICE.

o CANCEL:- Nothing is saved and you will be returned to the previous GM VOICE SELECT

screen. You can press EXIT to get back to the Voice EDITOR screen and press EXIT again
to get back to the voice selection screen. (The EXIT button usually steps you out of

functions the same way you came in … meaning as you go in deeper and deeper into
functions or menus, you can use the EXIT button to step out in steps as well … very useful
if you want to make a minor correction in a previous step but do not want to start all
over!)

 To play this voice (with your new 2nd voice assigned to it):-

o Press the VOICE button once more to access the voices.
o Touch USER on the bottom right side of the screen (it comes on yellow). When you

touch any of the voice group buttons from here on, the voices displayed to the left of
the screen will be the USER VOICES (not factory voices). To play the factory voices once
more, this USER button must be off (not yellow).

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o Touch the group to the right of the screen where your new voice resides (PIANO,

GUITAR). (Hint:- It will be the same group from which you started with above when you
wanted to create a new 2nd voice for your lead voice). All the user voices in that group
will now be displayed to the left of the screen.

o Touch your new voice to the left of the screen and play.
o To turn on the 2nd voice (just as you did for the factory voices), simply press the 2nd voice

button on the right side of the panel. Adjust its volume using the volume slider below it.

o You can always go back and forth between the FACTORY VOICES (USER Voice button off

– not yellow) and the USER Voices (user voice button on – yellow) by touching the USER
voice button then selecting which voice you want to use for your performance.

2.E - USING MORE THAN 2 LEAD SOUNDS/VOICES &
EDITING/CUSTOMIZING

Still not satisfied with only 2 voices to play/layer on the right hand and want to layer 3-4 voices at once?
Despite all the voices found on the SD7, many want to be able to customize voices, layer with 2 or 3
voices, make changes and save as their own customized voice (USER VOICE). This is very easily done on
the SD7. Better, still, using this same tool/editor as described above for the 2nd voice, you are quickly
able to layer 2 or 3 voices and create one USER VOICE (made up of your 2-3 voices … or 4 if you include
the 2nd Voice too). This way, at the touch of the screen, you can install recall your layered/edited voice
and use them as you wish.

To start editing a voice, touch and hold down for 2 seconds a voice you want to edit or layer or that
comes close to the voice you wish to create to open the VOICE EDITOR. Your screen should look
something like this (in this case, the Lounge Tenor Sax was selected):-

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The voice editor in the SD7 is quit extensive but very intuitive and easy to use. Once this screen (Page
1/6) is displayed you will notice the following.

 4 Rows of voices.

o The first 3 rows (shown with the red arrows above) are the voices that can be layered to

create a new voice. In this case, only 1 voice was used (Lounge Tenor) to create the
LOUNGE TENOR voice. By touching the ON/OFF icon to the left and next to each voice,
you can turn on/off individual voices you want to use/layer together. As you turn the
voices ON, the parameter values (voice, volume, shift, tune …etc) associated with each
voice turns black showing that this selected voice is now active so you can change as you
see needed. NB:- Even when inactive (white) you can still edit parameters of a voice
(touch the parameter and turn the wheel to change its value), however the effects of
these changes will only be heard if you turn this voice ON (by touching the On/Off icon
to the left of the screen.

o The 4th row is the 2nd voice tied to this lead/main voice. This is where you can change

the 2nd voice of each lead instrument and then later save as a USER VOICE of your own

 To the RIGHT of this screen, you can also turn on/off effects that you want associated with the

individual voices. The effect type is selected at the bottom. You can also assign effects that will
be activated by the volume pedal (e.g. OVERDRIVE TO PEDAL) as shown above

 SPLIT OCTIAVE:- When this button is ON (yellow), if the PIANIST button is ON (in full keyboard

mode) the octave of the entire keyboard is shifted up 1 to compensate for the lack of the extra

keys. If this button is OFF, then turning on the PIANIST button will have no effect on this sound.

 Page 2/6 gives you access to the RANGE (split points these elements which make up this voice

will be heard over), VELOCITY (how hard/soft a key is pressed before this element of this sound is
heard), FIXED (if on, then regardless of how soft/hard a key is pressed, the sound will be heard at
the same volume/tone), SUSTAN (the sustain pedal will have an effect on this voice if checked),

EXP (the volume pedal will have an effect on this voice if checked).

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 Right here, you can create a very ‘intelligent’ voice which depending on what area of the

keyboard you play you will hear element/voice 1. Depending on how hard you play, you will
hear element/voice2, and so on.

 Page 3/6 gives you access to set certain parameters of this voice (Portamento, pitch … etc).

 Page 4/6 is a powerful page in this editor. It allows one to set (if say you are using all 3 voices to

create this huge custom voice):-

o MORPH/ROTOR:- If you set Voice 1 as First and Voice2 as Second, when you turn the

Mod wheel up, you will hear voice 1 but as you move this mod wheel down, it now
morphs until you will only hear Voice 2 once the wheel is completely down. You can also
select the type of morph below the screen.

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o WHA-WHA: – If checked, this element/voice will have the wha wha effect applied to it if

a volume pedal is plugged into the SD7. This volume pedal can then be used to manually
turn on/off the wha-wha.

o HARMONY: – Adds a harmony to whichever voice it is checked in here (whenever the

HARMONY button on the panel is turned on – described in more details below in section
2L – HARMONY on Page 23). This has brought about great harmonies for single or

layered voices – depending on which of the 3 voices in this screen you want
harmonized.

o Voice Mode:- Touch this and turn the data wheel to select which voice mode is

appropriate for your new voice (e.g. Steel – where if 2 notes are played and you bend
the pitch wheel, only the lowest note bends), Duet and Trio – harmony modes with 2 or
3 voices harmonically added to the lead voice etc.

 Page 5/6 gives you access to set the attack, decay ... etc. These parameters impact the actual

voice/sample you are editing and can be used to actually create a ‘new’ voice all together if
edited properly.

 V-TONE:- Adds natural characteristics and embellishments to the Sound.

 Page 6/6 below is a continuation from page 5/6 above.

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Once you have created your new voice, simply press the SAVE button on the panel to display the
following options:-

 SAVE:- Saves this new voice in the USER VOICE section with the same name as the factory voice.
 SAVE AS:- Allows you to name this new voice and save in the USER VOICE section when you

press ENTER (after naming it).

 CANCEL:- Cancels all changes and reverts to the VOICE EDIT screen you just came from. If you

press EXIT, all settings are restored and the keyboard returns to the voice selection screen.

2.F - PLAYING UP TO 2 VOICES WITH THE LEFT HAND (LOWER VOICES)

You can also assign up to 2 separate voices and play them together or separately on the left side of the
keyboard. These voices are usually determined by the style that is currently being used, but we will
show you how irrespective of the style selected, you can call up and use voices to the left of the SPLIT
point of the keyboard.

 First make sure your SD7 is displaying the default screen (screen it powers on with or similar. If

not, simply press EXIT repeatedly until you get there). Your screen should look like this:-

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 Press the VIEW button from this page to display the STYLE VIEW – all the

elements/musicians/tracks that make up the style. This will include the LOWER1 (LOW1) and
LOWER2 (LOW2) - 2 left manual voices as shown in the next screen:-

In this example, the first LOWER VOICE (LOW1) is called SOFT, and the 2nd LOWER VOICE (LOW2) is
called EL. PIANO1. This means that if the LOWER volume slider is up and you play any key to the left of
the SPLIT point on the keyboard, you will hear these 2 voices (depending on how they are set up in the
LOWER mode – see section 2H, page 19 below).

In this screen, all the parts/tracks that make up the style/beat are displayed and next to each one is the
VOLUME of that part. The LOWER voices have an extra column – OCTAVE. This value determines the
octave of the voice which you can change by touching the number and changing it by turning the data

wheel (+/- 12).

The column next to the OCTAVE values is the VOLUME column. Each LOWER/Left voice has a value
which you can change by touching it and adjusting using the data value wheel. The LOWER volume slider
on the left front panel controls the general volume for both LOWER voices.

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2.G - CHANGING THE SOUNDS/VOICES PLAYED WITH YOUR LEFT
HAND.

You can change the voice(s) played on the left of the keyboard as follows:-

 Touch the voice inside the LOW1 box (to change the first left voice). The following screen will be

displayed showing you the voice groups on the right and the voices on the left where the
current LOWER1 voice is from.

 Touch the voice group where you believe the voice you want to assign to the left hand resides.

The left side of the screen will show the voices in this group. You can turn the data wheel or
press the ENTER/PAGE button to access more voices in this current group.

 Touch the voice you want to play with your left hand.
 Press EXIT to return to the STYLE VIEW PAGE.

 If you want an additional LEFT Voice (LOWER2), touch the voice in the LOW2 box and pick a

different voice for it in the next screen – just as you did for the first left voice. Press EXIT to
return to the style view page.

 Play and make sure this is the voice you want to use in this particular scenario

2.H - OTHER PARAMETERS THAT CONTROL THE LOWER VOICE(S)

There are other parameters and functions that govern the Left/LOWER voices and other parts of the
Arranger section (Drum, Bass, Chord, Drum Mixer, Lower and Pianist & Bassist), however in this section
of this manual, we will only focus on the LOWER (since we are referring to the LEFT voices. These can be
accessed by touching the LOWER button on the screen:-

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The following screen is now displayed showing you the different parameters that control the
LEFT/LOWER voices:-

For each LEFT/LOWER voice, you can do the following from this screen:-

 Hold Start:- [Hold on Start]. When on, if a style is playing (and the HOLD button is on), this voice

will be sustained (held) until the style is stopped.

 Hold Stop:- [Hold on Stop]. When on, if a style is not playing (stopped) or if you are just playing

the keyboard normally and the HOLD button is on, this voice will be sustained (held). This is very
useful especially if you have PAD/SYNTH or STRING voices on the LEFT side and you do not want
a break between when you play/change chords on the left. In order to have a continuous voice,
use this feature. To stop playing the voice, turn off the HOLD STOP on the appropriate LOWER
voice or simply turn off the HOLD button.

 Hold Break:- The Lower voices are still heard when the style is quickly stopped using the Key

Start/Key Stop feature.

 Sop Mute:- When on, the Left/LOWER voices are not heard during rapid breaks (when Key Start

and Key stop are on and the left chord is played and release immediately or…. When only Key
stop is on and same action is carried out. One the arranger is played normally, the voices are
heard again.

 Mute:- This mutes the LEFT/LOWER voice as needed.

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2.I - PLAYING LEFT HAND BASS - MANUAL BASS

You can also play left had BASS on the SD7, i.e. play bass lines manually on the left side with your left
hand, while playing lead parts with a separate voice on the right side of the keyboard. To accomplish this
quickly and easily, simply press the MANUAL button on the left side of the panel.

Now when you play any notes to the left of the SPLIT point, you will hear the bass (Bass instrument is
determined by whatever style has been selected prior to this). So, you can now play a manual bass solo
with your left hand. To change the bass instrument currently being used –

 From the main page, touch VIEW to enter the STYLE VIEW mode once more.

 Your screen should look similar to this one above. The bass box shows the current bass

instrument being used/heard.

 Touch the current bass instrument (in the example above, Finger) to display all the other bass

sounds within the BASS voice group. Remember you can turn the data wheel or press the
ENTER/PAGE button to change the page and display other bass instruments. Once you find a
bass sound you like, touch it to insert it into the bass box.

 Press EXIT to return to the style view page and your new bass should be in the bass box.

 You can also access other BASS parameters and functions by touching the BASS box on this

screen above (right side) to display the following functions:-

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The left side of the screen now shows some very interesting BASS features under 2 columns – ARRANGE
(where you can use these features with the STYLE’s bass/ auto bass – described in more details above

under 2I – Manual bass Page 20) or MANUAL (with you playing bass manually on the left side of the
split point).

Let’s exploit the other features associated with the MANUAL Bass (which to change, simply touch and
turn the data wheel):-

o LEVEL:- This is the volume of the manual bass. Adjust according to the right volume so

as to get a good mix.

o SUSTAIN

 ON (1-63):- When you play a bass note, the note gets sustained. The higher the

value, the longer the bass note gets sustained. This is great when playing tunes
that have sustained or linked bass notes e.g. some old Pop tunes.

 OFF:- When you play a bass note, there is not sustain and the note dies off as

soon as you release the key. This is great when playing tunes that have rapid or
complex bass lines like Jazz or Latin (Merengue), where the individual bass notes
must be heard but not split over into the next note!

o ** VOICE LOCK:- Turn this on (yellow) to freeze the current bass. Usually when a band is

performing, the bass player plays the same bass instrument for all songs. As such, use
this feature to LOCK/FREEZE the bass instrument currently being used so that regardless
of which style is later selected, the same bass instrument is retained throughout.

o OCTAVE:- Select the OCTAVE of the bass instrument. -1 is the default but for some old

Jazz tunes, you may want to set the OCTAVE at -2 (2 octaves lower).

o POLY:-

 POLY – allows you to play more than one bass note at a time.
 MONO – You can only play one note at a time. If 2 or more notes are played,

only the first note is heard.

o V-TONE – This special feature adds “ambience” and more realism to the bass sound (or

any instrument when selected in VOICE EDIT).

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As for the manual BASS feature, this was already described above in details under “MANUAL BASS –

PLAYING LEFT HAND BASS”.

2.J - SAVING YOUR KEYBOARD SETTINGS (REGISTRATIONS)

All voices are now set but – how do you save this set up so you can instantly recall and use it in the
future? Your keyboard is all set up. You have the LEFT voice(s) that you need. You have the perfect
RIGHT/Lead voice that you need for a particular tune. You don’t have time to recreate this scene or
setting at a show in front of your guests so what do you do? How do you save this setup for a particular
song so that you can instantly recall it at the touch of a button when you are ready to play? This is
discussed in depth below under 6 – Keyboard settings/Registrations Page 88, but we can give you a
summary here.

 With the voices now all set up the way you want, press the REGIS button on the top right side of

the panel to turn on REGISTRATION.

 Press the SAVE button

 The following screen will now be displayed:-

 Touch REGISTRATION (Registrations are Song / Keyboard Setups which you save and can

instantly recall for live or studio performances) – and it should turn yellow.

 Now touch SAVE AS to give your current setting a name and press ENTER on the next screen’s

keyboard to save your song/keyboard set up.

 You can now change the set up of the keyboard and create different settings and save them

again the same way with different names to create a library of keyboard settings for different
songs. Note that even though you have created a setting for a song, as you perform, you (the

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user) can always overwrite this setting instantly as you change voices, tempo, styles on the fly.
The settings will still be in memory, unless you save and overwrite them.

2.K - HOW DO YOU QUICKLY RECALL YOUR SETTINGS
(REGISTRATIONS)?

Now that you have created many instant setups you can instantly recall (right hand, left hand, bass
voices … etc), how do you recall them?

 Press the REGS (Registration) button found on the top left side of the panel to access the

REGISTRATION screen which looks something like this:-

 As you can see from the screen above, you have 4 banks of registrations/set ups and each bank

can hold 1024 single registrations or song set ups. BANK1 is the default where your registration
will reside (unless you changed it), so if BANK 1 is not already on (yellow), touch it.

 The center of the screen will now display your registrations along with some that were already

put here by the factory. Scroll down (using the data wheel) to highlight your registration you
want to load and press ENTER or touch it twice (double click) to load it. Your settings will be
loaded immediately (left hand, right hand, manual bass [if applicable], style … etc) and you can
then play the song the setting was initially created for.

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2.L - INSTANTLY ADDING HARMONY TO YOUR SOUNDS/VOICES

You can instantly add harmony to your voices by pressing the HARMONY button on the right panel of
the SD7.

Once you do this, play a chord with your left hand and then play sounds with your right. You will notice
that as you play, the SD7 will generate harmony notes to supplement the notes you play, based on the
chords played by your left hand

The most efficient way to utilize this feature is to be in SPLIT/ARRANGER MODE (STYLE button should be
ON, PIANIST button OFF). When you play lead voices to the RIGHT of the split point, harmonies are
instantly added to these voices based on the chords to play to the LEFT of the split point of the
keyboard.

SELECTING HARMONY TYPES:- By pressing and holding down the HARMONY button, the screen will
display the various harmony types to choose from.

Touch the harmony type you want (or turn the data wheel to reveal even more). Now play a chord to the
left and a lead voice to the right and listen to how the SD7 instantly adds harmony to your voice.

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2.M - ASSIGNING HARMONY TYPES TO YOUR VOICES

You can assign which harmony types are used automatically with your voices or if you choose to layer
voices, which voices the automatic harmonies will be added to and which will be ignored, or further still
… set which harmony type to apply to which of your layered voices once this voice is recalled (USER
VOICE). This has already been described above in 1.E USER VOICE (Screen Page 4/6).

Please note that these harmonies referred to above, are for the voices you play on the keyboard and not
what you sing through the microphone (VOCAL HARMONIES ). VOCAL HARMONIES are covered below
(5.B VOICETRON – Page 80).

2.N - INSTANTLY DOUBLE A LEAD VOICE (DOUBLE)

Ever play a brass instrument on a keyboard and notice how ‘thin’ it sounds compared to the real thing?
To do so properly, you would have to play with both hands where one hand would play an octave higher
than the other so as to create the same sound as a live band would. On an arranger keyboard (such as
the SD7), this becomes a little tricky especially since your left hand will be focused on playing chords. To
accomplish this, the DOUBLE button on the SD7 takes care of this drawback instantly.

 In order to illustrate this better, for this example, press the VOICE button and select the BRASS

group. Now touch the BRASS SECTION voice on the screen.

 Play it with your right hand (single notes only). Great sounds but ….

 Now turn on the DOUBLE button by pressing it (it’s light will come on) and play again. No more

‘but …’!

 Remember though that this DOUBLE button can be programmed to create notes an octave

higher, an octave lower .. etc by simply pressing and holding it down for 2 seconds to display the
KEYBOARD CONTROL screen. From this screen you can touch:-

o DOUBLE DOWN (default):- Notes will be played an octave below the notes you play.
o DOUBLE UP:- Notes will be played an octave above the notes you play.
o PORTAMENTO:- Notes will slide up and down depending on the last note played.
o AFTERTOUCH: - Turns on/off the aftertouch (what happens when you press down a little

harder on a key).

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3. INSTANTLY ADD PROFESSIONAL EFFECTS TO YOUR VOICE AS
YOU PLAY – (LIVE EFFECTS)

You can instantly add Live EFX (Effects e.g. altering Filter, Dampler and Resonance parameters) to your
lead voice (and other parts of the keyboard to like Drums, Chords, Bass … etc, but let us focus on the lead
voice for now). To do so, simply press the LIVE EFX button found on the top right side of the panel.

The LIVE EFX light on the button will turn on (which means the LIVE EFX is now being applied to

whatever part they were assigned to). Now use the volume sliders (Right, 2nd, Micro & Vocal) shown

above to control the LIVE EFFECTS in real time as applied to the voice selected (see ASSIGNING WHAT

GETS AFFECTED BY THE LIVE EFX (EFFECTS) below).

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3.A - ASSIGNING WHAT GETS AFFECTED BY THE LIVE EFX (EFFECTS)

In order for the LIVE EFX to be assigned to impact the lead/right voice (or drums, bass, chords or
Wave/Mp3), you will have to go into the LIVE EFX editor and select which elements of the SD7 you want
the LIVE EFX to be applied to when turned on.

Press and hold down the LIVE EFX button on the right panel for about 2 seconds. A screen similar to this
one shown below will be displayed:-

The left side of the screen shows the various parts of the keyboard that can be affected by the LIVE EFX
(PLAYER, RIGHT [Right/Lead voice], DRUM [Drum track of the Arranger], BASS [Bass track of the
Arranger], CHORD1-5 [Chord tracks of the Arranger]). Touch the part you want the LIVE EFX to impact (in

the example above, RIGHT has been selected so when you turn on the LIVE EFX, only the right/lead voice
of the SD7 will be affected by the LIVE EFX settings/values). If you touch all the 9 parts, then all parts will

be affected by the values of the LIVE EFX when this button is turned on and the sliders moved.

3.B - VOICE LIST

You have gone through all these voices and found out that for certain scenarios, you only need between
10 to 20 voices or so. How can you quickly access just a few voices that you need and not be bothered
with all the others? You can create a voice list (FAVORITE VOICE LIST) and store your favorite voices in
this list such that when you press the VOICE LIST button, only your favorite voices will be displayed on
the screen. This saves a lot of time during live performances and it gives you quick access to your best
sounds or sounds you use often.

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3.C - HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN VOCIE LIST.

 Press the VOICE LIST button to display the first page of 10 favorite voices KETRON has

recommended. You can select any of these voices as usual by simply touching the voice on the
screen.

 If you turn the data wheel or press the ENTER/PAGE button, you can access the next 3 pages of

10 voices each.

 Now let us select a voice we want to replace in the current VoiceList. In this example, let’s

replace the voice MUSETTE with a voice of our own.

 Simply touch the voice - MUSETTE on the screen for about 2 seconds (If you touch and release

quickly, it will just be a voice selection meaning the musette voice will be selected and heard
when you play!).

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 The SD7 will quickly display the next screen which is the voice screen where the current voice

resides (the voice groups are to the right and voices to the left as usual). The VOICE LIST button
will now flash as you are in VOICE LIST EDIT mode … working on creating a new entry into the
VOICE LIST.

 Select the voice group to the right you believe your voice resides in and touch the voice you

want to replace the MUSETTE with. In this case, we have touched the voice group ACCORDION
and so it is highlighted in yellow – while the left of the screen displays the first page of
accordions.

o NB:- You can also use RAM voices (voices stored in the internal SSD that can be loaded

into memory) in the voice list. Simply press the RAM button here. The screen will list the

current voices in RAM.

o Touch the voice you want to use and it will be loaded into the voice location in question.

Remember more voices exist below so turn the data wheel to display them.

 Press EXIT once you have touched the appropriate voice. You will be returned to the VOICE LIST

page and guess what? Where your MUSETTE was, you should now find your new voice in the
same location.

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 Repeat the above action – touch and hold a voice you want to get rid of/replace – go to the

voice screen and make a new selection of the voice you want in that location instead – press
EXIT to return to the VOICE LIST screen … etc.

 Remember the VOICE LIST is made up of 4 pages with each page being able to display 10 voices

each – so you can fill the VOICE LIST up with up to 40 of your favorite voices (you don’t have to
as just 10 voices in the fist page may be sufficient ... but at least you know you can).

 Once done, you will now need to SAVE your favorite voices (VOICE LIST) else when you turn off

the SD7, they will be lost and you will have to do this all over again.

 To save your VOICE LIST, simply press the SAVE button while you are in the VOICE LIST page

(VOICE LIST button should NOT be flashing in edit mode).

 The following “SAVE VOICE LIST” page should be displayed.

 Touch SAVE to save your new VOICE LIST (or EXIT to cancel and do more editing or abort the

VOICE LIST all together by pressing the VOICE LIST button and turning it off). From now on,
whenever you press the VOICE LIST button, you will have access to your favorite voices. (NB:-

You are not provided an option to name the Voice List as you can only create 1 voice list [of up to
40 favorite voices] and store in the SD7).

KETRON SD7 Manual & Tutorial